However, his father said: ‘Otto was systematically tortured and intentionally injured by Kim [Jong-un] and his regime. This was no accident.’

He said when they saw his son he was ‘moving around, and jerking violently, making these howling and inhuman sounds’.

Mr Warmbier said Otto’s head was shaved, that he was blind and deaf and that his arms and legs were ‘totally deformed’. He also said he had a large scar on his foot.

A card at Mr Warmbier’s funeral in June (Picture: Rex)

He added it ‘looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth’.

He said: ‘They kidnapped Otto, they tortured him, they intentionally injured him. They are not victims, they’re terrorists.’

North Korea had claimed it was the ‘biggest victim’ in the case. Its foreign ministry said in a statement: ‘Although we had no reason at all to show mercy to such a criminal of the enemy state, we provided him with medical treatments and care with all sincerity on a humanitarian basis until his return to the US.’

Great interview on @foxandfriends with the parents of Otto Warmbier: 1994 – 2017. Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea.

Otto’s mother said: ‘We thought he was in a coma, but you couldn’t call it a coma. What we pictured, because we’re optimists, was that Otto would be asleep and maybe in a medically-induced coma. And then when our doctors here would work with him and he’d get the best care and love, that he would come out of it.’